The invention relates to a gas valve unit for setting a gas volumetric flow supplied to a gas burner of a gas appliance, in particular a gas cooking appliance, wherein the gas valve unit has at least two on/off valves.
Gas valve units of the type mentioned above are described for example in the publications EP0818655A2 and W02004063629 A1. With such gas valve units it is possible to control the gas volumetric flow supplied to a gas burner of a gas cooking appliance in a number of stages. The gas volumetric flow has a reproducible size in each stage here. The throughflow cross section of the gas valve unit as a whole and therefore the size of the gas volumetric flow are set by opening or closing certain on/off valves of the gas valve unit, thereby releasing or interrupting the gas flow through certain throttle openings.
With the known generic gas valve units the on/off valves are actuated individually by electromagnetic means. To this end each of the on/off valves is assigned its own electromagnet, which opens or closes the on/off valve. The electromagnets are activated by an electronic control unit. This electronic control unit processes the signals generated by an operator of the gas cooking appliance by means of an electrical operating element and activates the electromagnets of the on/off valves accordingly.